Facebook Profile Pages

Are Facebook Profile Pages Becoming Irrelevant?

A recent article argues that as Facebook continues to add more features and partnerships to its real-time news feed, a person's actual profile page is less relevant than his or her daily activity, including "likes," comments, status updates, and now, places. The article states that profile pages were more important in the early days of social networking when sites like Friendster and MySpace ruled supreme, but the game changed in 2006 when Facebook introduced its live feed.

I don't know about you, but I do still regularly check friends' profile pages regardless of their feed activity. In fact, if I notice a friend has been particularly inactive on Facebook, I'm more inclined to check out his or her profile page. What about you? Do you think that profile pages are irrelevant?

I agree with Akasha.. when I don't immediately recognize a person who is requesting me I check out their profile to see if we went to school together or something. Also, with the people I know sometimes I want to see where they work or where they are currently going to school if I am promoting a certain event, etc..

I think their relevant when it's someone I haven't talked to in a while or like the the previous poster said, when someone I don't know has asked to be friends. I can check out who they are and if there is any reason to accept their request. In addition I will check out people's pictures and what they are up to on occasion.

I realized this was the case when facebook first changed "interests" and "activities" to "pages" you "like". At that point, I realized that I hadn't really changed my profile much since I signed up in early 2004. Aside from the occasional changes (new band or movie I like; changing from student to alum; adding my new jobs; starting a new relationship), my profile had stayed pretty much the same. I'd join new groups, but that was about it. Reading over what my profile said, it was weird to realize I had defined myself by my interests, activities, and memberships.
I think people mostly interact via news feeds. The only time people actually look at profiles is when they're meeting someone new.